When I’m alone
and I talk,
with no one around
to hear,
am I really talking?
Am I saying anything?
Do my words exist?
Or are my utterances
forever lost
to a climb into a sky
that only grows colder
the more it concedes
to a natural vacuum?

Why is a dream but a vision
others wish me not to see?
Why do I feel plots hatching
as if I’m the farthest enemy?
Why must I sink
for you to rise?
A restless desire
for my demise.
This trial by fire
knows me in ways
you can never expect
and certainly don’t praise.

Once dark becomes my cloud,
and I travel in secret shroud
and count on inevitable
tearing of unlike souls,
accustomed to small measures
containing vast treasures
of fortunes only spoken of
in dreams,
only then will you perceive
what it is that I see.
Will you then find your heart
in resolve to preserve me?

I stand here wondering
if life is a choice.
And I wonder what else is a choice.
I wonder why people behave
as if what they choose
is not a choice.
Why does a person practice a religion
that hurts others
as if it is not a choice?
Why does a person practice politics
that hurt others
as if it is not a choice?
Why do people look upon
a suicidal person
as if what they wish to do
as if the end of life they crave
is a choice?
Why is the end of our own lives
a choice
but not the end of others’ lives?
Why is hurting ourselves not right
but hurting others is right?
What makes us right?
What makes me wrong?

I stand here wondering
if life is a choice.
And I see a beetle cross my wood floor
lost
confused
not knowing where it is
not knowing which direction
it is headed
so it scuttles in any direction.
I bend to one knee
then descend to the other
and extend my hand
onto which the beetle hesitantly crawls.
I stand
and walk out the door
the dawn greeting me.
I step
down each gravelly step
to the ground floor
to the grass beside the walkway.
Lowering my hand to the damp grass
I allow the beetle to crawl excitedly
from my hand and onto the grass
where it feels more natural.
Walking back up the steps
I think of what I could have done
how I could have smashed it dead
rather than going out of my way
helping it
back to familiar ground.
Is life a choice?
What makes me so wrong?